Where You Are What You Wear; At the Sunglass Hut, Selling Image and Status by the Pair

By WILLIAM GLABERSON,

Published: April 9, 1992

DANBURY, Conn.—
A stylish woman swept past Kristian Matz at the mall.

"Christian Dior, $275," he said.

He meant the sunglasses.

He would.

Malls have given a whole new meaning to the term "specialist." There are stores that sell only shirts. There are sneaker shops, jeans joints and pocketbook parlors. Each is staffed by people who cultivate an unusually narrow expertise and tend to get distracted by particular passing body coverings.

At the dawn of the consumer age, Vance Packard's 1957 book "The Hidden Persuaders" detailed how automobile dealers peddled hope, status and sexual image. In the day of the mall, the new persuaders are places like the specialty shop where 21-year-old Kristian Matz works: Sunglass Hut.

"Our goal is to make sunglasses like owning shoes," said Jack B. Chadsey, the president of the Sunglass Hut Corporation, which is based in Miami. "Men could have four to five pairs. You tell me how many pairs women could have."

If the Hut fails to make sunglasses essential, it will not be for lack of trying, recent visits to Danbury Fair proved. From the bottom of the organization, to the top, the sunglass mantra rings.

At the Danbury mall, Kristian Matz and the other sunglass sales associates, whose average age is 21.8 and who all look as though they just came in from the beach, can deliver a sunglass spiel in person that is nearly as convincing as the ones Mr. Chadsey and Mr. Lemack made over the telephone.

They analyze the "function" and "fashion" components of sunglass desirability. They explain the relationship between the depletion of the ozone layer and the need for sunglasses. And they provide fashion advice. But with the accent on the positive.

There is the occasional double-chinned customer, just sliding toward middle age, who is intent on the surfer's specs (like Bausch & Lomb's Killer Loops with polycarbonite lenses, $89). Such a prospect, Mr. Matz said, is likely to receive the advice that a tamer pair might look, well, better with his features and skin pigmentation.

All the attention on sunglasses, some of the Hutmen admitted, does slightly skew their view of the world. Leo D. Mueller, an earnest 23-year-old who is the manager of both of the Danbury Fair's Sunglass Huts, recently went to Florida on vacation. Along the route, he said, he stopped at other Huts just to visit. And on the beach, he said, "You look at 'em. Everyone's got 'em on. 'He's got $200 ones on; she's wearing cheap ones.' "

Edward Wheeler, who is, at 25, the oldest of Danbury Fair's Hut salesmen, says Leo Mueller sometimes gets carried away with his sunglass zealotry. "He likes 'em," Mr. Wheeler said of his young boss. "He wants you to like 'em. 'Everyone has sunglasses? The world is great,' " according to Leo, Mr. Wheeler said. "I can't get that worked up about them"

Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Mueller, it is true, do not have much in common.

For one thing, Mr. Wheeler has a college degree in economics and says he is working at Sunglass Hut "in between" jobs as a junior accountant. Mr. Mueller has temporarily suspended his college studies and is "shooting," he said, to be the president of a company like Sunglass Hut someday. Different Specs

Despite this gulf between them, however, when tested, Mr. Wheeler showed a true Hutster's ability to discern the link between personality and sunglass preference.

Behind the counter at the Hut's lower level location at Danbury Fair, called Sunglass Place, even though it is really a Sunglass Hut, Mr. Wheeler looked down at the selection. In the display case, where an ordinary person might see only plastic and glass, Ed Wheeler saw much of the human condition.

But, despite the Hut's carefully crafted health pitch, another point of common ground between Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Mueller is their experience that something other than ozone-layer anxiety is the real persuader. "The No. 1 factor: Looks," Mr. Wheeler said.

Mr. Mueller agreed. "We have a lot of girls," he said, "who come in and say, 'What would make a guy look at me in a car?' "